


lift your head and look out the window

by plinys



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Aftermath, F/M, Post-Finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-24
Updated: 2019-05-24
Packaged: 2020-03-13 20:01:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18947839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plinys/pseuds/plinys
Summary: “You’re going to be able to take that off right,” Charlie asks the question, eyes flicking over the fairy godmother get up.“I better fucking be able to.”[or: Nora Darhk, after they save the day.]





	lift your head and look out the window

**Author's Note:**

> i have a lot of feels about nora post-legends finale so here is one of probably many fics dealing with this. i wrote this on an airplane listening to sad music, and did not proof read it, so enjoy or something
> 
> also it counts for the "panic attack" square of my bad things happen bingo card

 

They save the day.

It’s different from last year, for one thing, there’s no one putting her in handcuffs and tugging her away from the man that she loves. No plan to escape, to run the first chance she gets. No father to quietly mourn in the moments when she finally gets alone.

Instead there’s happiness and a  _ theme park _ of all things and this terrible blue dress and-

“You’re going to be able to take that off right,” Charlie asks the question, eyes flicking over the fairy godmother get up.

With everything going so perfectly it wasn’t like Nora had forgotten.

It was just something she had ignored.

Hadn’t thought about really.

Until it was over and the reminder that while Tabitha may have been eaten by a dragon, and while Neron may have been removed from Ray’s body, there was still one thing not yet fixed.

She was still stuck like  _ this. _

In a blue ball gown, with a magic wand, and with a  _ curse  _ that she couldn’t easily get rid of.

Nora tries to make light of it, the words carried with a laugh, “I better fucking be able to.” 

A quick glance towards John, the only person who knows magic more than her, gets her a shrug in return which isn’t promising.

But that’s a problem for later.

For now there’s celebrating and a brief promise that he’ll look into it, but that for now being bonded to  _ Gary  _ wasn’t the worst thing ever.

Especially not once the celebrations starts and Gary wishes for ‘ _ the finest liquor money could buy’ _ and ‘ _ far too much pizza with that good cheesy break’  _ and with a wave of a magic want Nora makes just that appear for everyone. In the moment it doesn’t seem so bad. This is beyond what she could normally have done with her own magic. And it’s more  _ fun  _ than the darkness that used to thrum through her veins. 

The happy feeling lasts well into the night. When she’s a little tipsy, and laughing from her place on Ray’s lap with far too many layers, whispering into his ear with no hint of being subtle that they should escape back to his room and celebrate properly.

They’ll have to talk about all of  _ that  _ later too. About the mutual trauma they now share, about knowing what it feels like to have someone else in control of your body. That feeling of no longer feeling completely at home in your own skin. And that horror she felt when Neron looked at her with Ray’s eyes, and nothing but possession and awfulness in his gaze.

But for now…

For now, everything feels alright and happy.

And there’s a smile on his face and hands on her waist and she doesn’t want to waste anymore time.

Ava shouts at them to  _ use protection  _ as they sneak out, so any chance of being subtle is beyond gone, and Nora just flips her friend off before tugging Ray up and out of the room.

It’s different from the last time she was in this room.

Hiding out.

Wandering down the hallways carefully and hoping not to run into anyone for fear of getting turned into the Time Bureau.

Now, she works for the Time Bureau and her only worry about running into someone stems from the fact that they would want to talk and that would slow her down from getting what she wants. 

Thankfully they don’t run into anyone, and the second the door to his room shuts, she pressing up on her toes pulling Ray down to kiss her. He meets her lips happily, and this is important, heated but still the slowest kiss they’ve had since he’d returned from hell. All of those had been rushed kisses, the rush of having him back, alive and well in her arms once more.

This is a celebration. 

Meant to be savored.

She pushes her hands at that  _ suit _ the one that  _ that monster  _ put Ray in, and it’s an impulse, something instinctive, the need to get Ray out of his clothes as quickly as possible.

She pulls on the magic within her, just as she had before when they were in the Waverider’s kitchen and a little too eager, it’s nothing much, a small spell meant to undo the buttons so she doesn’t accidentally rip them.

Except… Nothing happens.

Nora freezes, her hands hovering just there over Ray’s chest, and the whole world seems to slow down.

There’s no hint of purple around her fingers, none of the magic that she has had since she was a teenager, lost in this cruel world, none of  _ her  _ magic. 

Something that had been a source of comfort for her for years.

The one thing that was truly  _ hers  _ even when her body has not.

And it was just gone… 

All thoughts of celebratory sex fall away from her mind at once as all she can feel is that growing sense of horror.

“Nora,” there’s so much concern in Ray’s voice, and it just show on her face, how much she is falling apart.

His hands take hers pulling them away from his chest and holding onto them instead and it’s only then that she registers how badly she had been shaking.

“Baby,” his voice is even softer, “It’s okay, don’t cry, I’m here.”

She can’t help it, the tears that she had been holding back begin to fall, choking her suffocating. She’s thankful when he doesn’t ask, when he just pulls her to his chest and holds her tight. A comforting hand on her back, the softest kiss pressed to the top of her head.

He holds her there as she falls apart, doesn’t ask, maybe he doesn’t need to. If there was anyone that would understand. 

All the weight of the last few weeks coming crushing down all at once.

“I know it’s selfish,” Nora says, her voice still choked up. “Everything’s fixed, and everyone’s alive, and we saved the day,  and you came back to me.”

“You brought me back,” Ray corrects, his hand tightening against her back just slightly. “You saved me.”

Nora squeezes her eyes shut, willing off another round of tears. Another breakdown she isn’t ready for just yet.

“Everyone is happy and safe but I’m,” Nora pauses, her chest tight, the words stuck in there, trapping her. Just like her magic is trapped. “But I’m not back to normal.”

He presses another kiss against the top of her head. Where the tiara would have been had that not been lost and shoved on top of someone else’s head earlier in the night. 

“You will be,” he says like a promise.

“We don’t know that,” Nora insists. “I know John said he’d look into it, but… If the only other option is for another witch to take the curse, what witch in their right mind would willingly give up their magic.”

She did.

To save a friend.

Or at least to try to.

She failed at that, tricked and trapped, and hadn’t even been able to help properly. 

“John went to the ends of the earth to take you up from that coma,” Ray says, “And you saved him from hell, so I don’t doubt he’ll find a way to return that favor. But…”

“But,” Nora echoes.

Ray pulls back from her slightly, and Nora impulsively wants to lean in again. To hide herself from the rest of the world. From anything that isn’t him. 

But he holds her back. Forces their eyes to meet. As much as it hurts to admit. She needs this. She needs him. She needs for force herself to remember that even if this feels like the end that it doesn’t have to be.

He’s right, John will find a way, if there’s anyone that could… But in the moment…

He understands this too.

Somehow Ray understands everything about her, even the things she more often refuses to admit. What she has done to deserve this man she will never know.    

“For now,” he says slowly, letting go of her hand only to chase the path of one of the tears on her cheek, “Let’s get you out of this dress and into something more comfortable, okay?”

Charlie’s joke about whether or not she’d actually be able to take it off comes back into her mind, and Nora can’t help the spark of anxiety that follows that. The idea of what if it doesn’t work. What if she’s stuck not only with the curse, without her  _ magic _ , but in some fairy tale ball gown for all of time...

Ray’s hands slide down her sides, not with the heat and passion that she had imagined him undressing her when they first slipped away from the group. But softer, hesitant almost, as he finds the zipper on the dress and and then with the clasp at the back of her neck, before he finally helps push the dress down off of her.

Nora can’t help it, the sigh of relief that tumbles from her lips as she steps out from the pile of fabric on the ground. In the same bra and panties that she had started the day in, though sadly her favorite leather jacket (and the Time Bureau pin she had worn on it) must have disappear when the dress was magically summoned. 

This isn’t the first time Ray has seen her in such a state.

And hopefully not the last.

But there’s still something soft and chivalrous about him, the way he doesn’t let his eyes roam over her body as she knows he desperately wants to, the way he averts his gaze, a hint of blush on his cheeks, mumbling something about - “Finding you a shirt to wear at the very least.”

“Ray?”

“Yes,” he replies, one of his shirts, a black one that would be large enough to nearly be a dress on her, in his hands, as he then finally turns to look at her.

He’s still in that suit, rumpled a bit now, but unlike the monster that had worn it before, there is only love and concern in his eyes as he looks at her. 

“Thank you.”

It’s only two words.

Not nearly enough to express everything that she feels for him.

But she knows that he understands, all the things she isn’t quite ready to say. 

For now, that is enough.

The smile that he gives her in return, is too bright and too good for this cruel mess of a world, and there’s still a blush on his cheeks, when he hands her the shirt back and says, “Thank you too.” 

 


End file.
